MV’s Fire Dept enters new era
Progress Seen with New Fire Chief, New Fire Hall
by Greg Forbes, contributing staff writer
For the Harrison County Times-Reporter
Within the last year, Missouri Valley Fire and Rescue has celebrated several steps in a new direction.
First was the appointment of Angel Smiley as fire chief last December — the first female fire chief in both Missouri Valley’s and Harrison County’s history. Smiley took over for
former chief and 37-year department member Forest Dooley, who retired last year.
Smiley said the transition has “taken some time,” but what seemed like an intimidating transition at first was met with reassurance from within the ranks of the fire department
community.
“When I first started, I mentioned that I had some pretty big shoes to fill and one of the previous chiefs said, ‘No, you have your own shoes to fill,’” she recalled. “That made a big impact.”
Smiley first joined MVFD back in 2013, working her way up from Firefighter I to Firefighter II before becoming an EMT in 2015. From there, she continued to rise as a promising member of the department as she became captain and eventually EMS
chief.
As she forges her own way, Smiley said she has appreciated the wealth of experience and advice at her disposal.
“I’m still learning a lot, but I’ve picked up a lot from previous fire chiefs,” she said.
As Smiley approaches the end of her first year as fire chief, exciting new opportunities for the department have opened up.
The Missouri Valley City Council was scheduled to set a projected date for the completion of the much-needed addition to the fire hall connected to City Hall this week. Smiley said seeing the start of the building process last summer to now
operating out of the new facility has been a dream come true.
“As a department, we are all looking forward to the completion of the new addition,” Smiley said in a follow-up email. “The excitement is overwhelming, and has been a long-time coming. And the dream was made possible by the citizens of this great town, the grants and the private donors toward this project.”
The benefits of the new hall to the department are numerous. Smiley said two of the key features are heat and a water filling station.
“Heating wasn’t the greatest, so we had to take the chances of the trucks freezing over the winter,” she said.
Another benefit of the hall is its spaciousness, which allows the department to now store its equipment in one location instead of picking it up at alternate storage sites in town.
“Depending on what the call was, we had to go elsewhere to get a specific piece of equipment to take care of what needed to be done,” she said. “So, expanding the building, we’ll be able to have everything in one spot.”
She added all improvements satisfied the overall goal of the project, which was to increase the department’s efficiency.
“The previous chiefs who had originally put this together had all of that in mind,” Smiley said.
Prior to the completion of the hall, the department celebrated the arrival of a new ambulance at the beginning of September. It was a much-needed addition to a crew that had only been able to operate one ambulance for the first half of 2025. Smiley said the
new rig was immediately put to use as its remaining ambulance was facing necessary maintenance.
In its first month, Smiley said the ambulance was used for 53 calls.
“So, it was either use the ambulance right away or we were going to have to rely on other departments to cover our calls for a week,” she said.
Like the fire hall, the new ambulance was also made with efficiency in mind. Smiley said it has an automatic lift, which enables just one person to operate it.
With nearly a year as chief in the books and two major projects online, Smiley said she’s looking forward to seeing the benefits unfold not just for Missouri Valley, but the surrounding communities.
“It’s exciting…to see everyone continue to move forward and work together,” she said. “One of our main goals as a department is our mutual aid and building up the relationships with the other departments.”
